


two thousand miles i roamed

by la_victorienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-07-04
Updated: 2008-07-04
Packaged: 2018-10-16 00:41:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,495
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: A man in silhouette, dark body sharp against the setting sun.  He is utterly immobile, though all around him the water rolls in its gentle, familiar rhythm.  A fixed point in time, everything moving, while he is standing still.





	

(SITTIN' ON) THE DOCK OF THE BAY  
\- written by Otis Redding and Steve Cropper

Sittin' in the mornin' sun  
I'll be sittin' when the evenin' come  
Watching the ships roll in  
And then I watch 'em roll away again, yeah

I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Watching the tide roll away  
Ooo, I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Wastin' time

I left my home in Georgia  
Headed for the 'Frisco bay  
'Cause I've had nothing to live for  
And look like nothin's gonna come my way

So I'm just gonna sit on the dock of the bay  
Watching the tide roll away  
Ooo, I'm sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Wastin' time

Look like nothing's gonna change  
Everything still remains the same  
I can't do what ten people tell me to do  
So I guess I'll remain the same, yes

Sittin' here resting my bones  
And this loneliness won't leave me alone  
It's two thousand miles I roamed  
Just to make this dock my home

Now, I'm just gonna sit at the dock of the bay  
Watching the tide roll away  
Oooo-wee, sittin' on the dock of the bay  
Wastin' time

  
A man in silhouette, dark body sharp against the setting sun. He is utterly immobile, though all around him the water rolls in its gentle, familiar rhythm. A fixed point in time, everything moving while he is standing still.

 

_age ten_

With his mother on a shopping trip into the city, gathering ribbon, thread, and straight pins for his father, Ianto stops on the dock to watch the harbor in uniquely child-like awe. Young enough for pretend games, old enough for pirate books, he shouts made-up, harmless but fiercely-delivered curses at a cargo steamer for a full thirty seconds before his mam grabs him by the wrist to go to the next shop. Bouncing with triumphant energy, he enacts a rollicking sea adventure for his da when they get back, a swashbuckling rendition of how, armed with only his little-boy voice and a stern eye, he has captured a whole shipful of the finest fabrics for his da to work with, and he presents the requested items with a gallant and debonair bow. His mam rolls her eyes in loving amusements and his da accepts the errand bag solemnly, praising his precocious son as a gentleman pirate. Ianto vows to always retain the title.

_age seventeen_

One foot on the railing and his elbows over the side, Ianto throws the butt of a cigarette contemptuously into the water before settling his hands on his hips and looking around the all-too-familiar dock. In exactly ten days he will be out of dumpy South Wales and into London for good, a change for university he fully intends to make permanent. Mam in asylum, Da using the last of the shop sale money to keep her there, the two of them are too occupied with Mam's condition to care about Ianto's whereabouts, and he prefers it that way. He's got a cousin with a flat in London and a posh job at some government agency, and a promise that the shoplifting charge he received just last month won't keep him out of a post there. Ianto Jones has a future, and it doesn't include dirty Cardiff and the godforsaken Plass; doesn't include Wales at all. He lights another fag and slouches on one of the benches. The water is a bit of all right, though. He might miss that.

_age thirty-two_

Comfortably perched, one elbow on the bench arm and his chin in his hand, Ianto crosses his ankle over his knee and closes his eyes to listen to the waves against the dock pillars. Even with Torchwood seemingly on its way to Hell in a tastefully decorated hand-basket, Gwen announcing she's pregnant and Andy flooding the brand-new Weevil container cells, the Doctor calling to arrange a visit and Jack at an off-planet business conference for the next three days, Martha breaking her arm and poor, new Nathan consistently under-brewing both tea and coffee, this dock, these waves, are always the same. Ianto breathes the salt air deeply, letting the whole world fall behind him and the sounds of the Plass lull him into a soft doze. There are always things to do, people to answer to, problems to suss out. But in this familiar spot, there is only Ianto, the water, and the sky, so familiar to each other that they're nearly the same. Just ten minutes more of this and he might make it through the next few days without feeling the urge to murder someone.

_age forty-nine_

Ianto and his niece are strolling down the Plass, she with an ice cream and he with an iced coffee – not quite right, and not good for his heart anymore, but well worth it today – talking about nothing. Brynne Marie spends almost every Friday afternoon with him, as she has done since very nearly the day she was born, and they have become quite accustomed to each other's thought processes, thank you very much. They pick the same bench without needing to discuss it and Brynne scoots under Ianto's armpit, relishing the contact in the last few moments of their day together.

“Mind you don't drip on my trousers,” he says gently, sensing her smile.

“Mind you don't drip in my hair,” she retorts, an old rebuttal to an old and familiar joke, from when she was only seven. And now she is seventeen, the vision of her mother, and his dearest girl.

Gwen approaches from the left and sits with Brynne and Ianto until they finish their ice cream, then kissing and thanking Ianto before leaving with her daughter.

“See you later, Uncle Yan,” Brynne whispers when she kisses him on the cheek, and he nods.

“See you later, love. Call me whenever you need me.” She grins, a blinding and brilliant smile that breaks his heart every time, and he waits until they're in Gwen's car before throwing away his cup and heading to his empty, lonely flat.

_age seventy-eight_

“Come on, Uncle,” Brynne says, her strong, pianist's hands on the handles of his wheelchair. “Let's get you out, take you to see the water. You'd like that, wouldn't you?”

“I once spent almost ten years away from the water,” Ianto says, and he is shocked at how old his voice sounds. “I thought I could get away from Cardiff, away from my home.” He can hear her smile behind him, and he takes that as an invitation to continue. She always listens, his lovely Brynne. “But the water drew me back, right here to Jack.” It's the first time in a long time he's managed to say that name out loud, and he has a feeling Brynne has never heard it from him before because there's a hiccup in her pushing and her breath is sharp. “You'll have heard about him from your mam,” he predicts, “and seen the pictures. So there's not much more I can tell you, about him leaving with the Doctor a week before you were born. The things you know – that we haven't seen him since, that your mam was holed up on bedrest by then, so she never said goodbye, not before you, not before she died – that I don't need to re-explain. But she never did hear him say he would be back, either.” Ianto pauses a moment to cough and Brynne's hand holds out a cloth hanky with his initials on the corner. He accepts it gratefully. “But he did. He said he would. And I've been waiting ever since.” They've arrived at the Bay, and even through old and cloudy eyes Ianto can see how unchanged the dock is, as familiar as when he was ten years old.

“Maybe it's time you stopped waiting,” a man's voice says, and Ianto is smiling before his slow brain has even begun to process its origin. Jack kneels in front of his chair and holds Ianto's hand to his cheek, smiling apologetically into Ianto's still-blue eyes. “I could explain, but it wouldn't do any good. I am sorry, for what it's worth – I thought we would be back sooner.” Ianto cough-laughs and a flash of pain crosses Jack's face, but he holds Ianto's hand through it. “I'll not leave you again,” he vows. “I mean it this time, I swear.” Ianto just closes his eyes and listens to the waves, too fatigued to introduce Brynne Marie Cooper-Williams to Captain Jack Harkness. After a moment's rest, then he'll do it.

 

A man in silhouette, dark body sharp against the setting sun. He has been here as long as anyone can remember, and now he is still, while two young people – his children? weep around him. The passers-by are oddly envious – to die on the dock of the Bay, filled with the gentle, familiar rhythm of the waves, is the ultimate kind of peace.


End file.
